The Practice

The practice, which is well-established in Europe and Australia, has barely made it to the states yet. There are four of us here from New York and one couple from Virginia and there seems to be great interest in our being here. I begin to hear stories about the life-changing, healing effects the shaking has had on so many but feeling quite weak following my first few shaking sessions, I don't have much appetite for conversation or even food yet. I enjoy the wonderful fresh fruit that accompanies each meal and sometimes that is all I can manage after the strong workout. (Here are some pictures of Dragon Fruit, before and after cutting.)

Ratu came by me where I was shaking in the Taman and told me to go 'maximal, maximal' and I did. I am sill not laughing, which is apparently a significator of a real turning point and opening, but my shaking is getting stronger and so am I. I find that working with the mantra “Om swastiastu Ratu Bagus” really does help keep the focus and interrupt the compulsion to think and plan and distract oneself. The image I have for the mantra is sort of a welcome to my soul. I am glad to be here but it is hard work. I start wondering how I will be able to explain this when I get home and am relieved when Ratu says this is irrational. I like that. So nice to say that pejorative with pride. It can't be explained. Just do it!

Tonight, the last shake of the day, was my easiest yet. I actually walked out with a spring in my step instead of that delicate, frail feeling I had all day. I was able to focus on the core root chakra which is a way to begin to open the kundalini and that helped me focus more on the mantra. Though I do keep planning a bit and still wondering how to tell my friends about this amazing, irrational, experience.

I came from the sixties generation which first made the courtship between East and West a wholesale endeavor. Others had carved out the pathways, starting in the early 20th Century, but it was the Pluto in Leo 'sixties' generation' that so enveloped these ideas that by the 2nd decade of the 21st Century, there's nary a soul left in the West that doesn't have the words Karma, meditation, enlightenment, yoga, astrology, the I Ching and Buddhism on the tips of their tongues whether they espouse these practices and goals or not. Shaking meditation may be one of the most accessible and strongest modalities I have yet found, but it is only in the doing of it over time that its value and meaning truly shine through.

It’s now my 5^th day here and for the last two or so I have been in what’s euphemistically called a ‘process’ for which everyone congratulates you. A 'process' from what I can glean can be anything from being really sick or in some way upset. I had a fever all day yesterday and today I feel better. The good news is that through the shaking one seems to move through things much more quickly than usual, though today I still have all the signs of a cold. I’ve had no real appetite since I got here, which is completely out of character, but I have eaten on instruction and also because the food looks and tastes so good. Every meal includes a big tray of fresh papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe and sometimes pineapple. The salads are fresh and seem homegrown and there is a wonderful dressing I hope to be able to reproduce for my friends at home. I don’t have the proportions yet but I know it includes tons of parsley, chopped up, garlic, lemon and oil.

Tonight I had a good conversation with Deva. He’s a retired man from Germany who said many Americans have come by, here and in Rome, where there is already a Ratu center, shown great enthusiasm and commitment and then sooner or later stopped shaking. I hope I won’t be like that but it wouldn’t be uncharacteristic. Apparently the green movement and other modalities have taken stronger root in Germany than almost anywhere else. It seems that it may be something in the American disposition that is so used to using and disposing, that makes it hard to take hold and besides, as Deva rightly said, this is not an easy practice.

I had the idea to do a cookbook of the food here and suggested it to Ratu and his wife Nikki. So as not to make more of a goal than a process out of it, I have gingerly asked Sukri, who is apparently an energy master in charge of the kitchen, for 2 at a time. Here’s what I have so far.

PARSLEY SALAD DRESSING (Proportions to be recalculated for smaller groups) I kilo of parsley, chopped; 4 TBL garlic, chopped; Juice of 10 limes; 1 bottle of olive oil;1-2 TBL salt

PINK RICE (Served on the side with eggs for breakfast): Ist steam the rice; Then fry garlic and onion; Then sauté cabbage, carrots, spring onions, other green vegetables (Optional meat, fish, eggs); Use concentrated Chile (non hot) here called Lombok, or tomato puree, cooked down; Then pieces of hot, red Chile, Vegetable or meat stock; Salt and pepper. This can apparently be varied many ways.